


Chemicals in the Brain

by Iambic



Category: Dollhouse
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-20
Updated: 2009-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-04 16:45:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/32320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iambic/pseuds/Iambic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Do you program that in, too?" Boyd asked once. "Or are all the Actives naturally bisexual?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chemicals in the Brain

**Author's Note:**

> For lgbtfest. _533\. Dollhouse, Boyd/Topher, When you build personalities for a living, you start to get to understand them a bit better._

"Do you program that in, too?" Boyd asked once, after an engagement of Echo's involving an unsatisfied corporate trophy wife and three days in a Malibu mansion. "Or are all the Actives naturally bisexual?"

Topher waved the personality chip at him. "It's programmed in. I can make her nearsighted or lactose intolerant or subconsciously a master martial artist. Sexuality isn't really a big deal, you know."

"It is to some people," Boyd replied. The conversation ended there, as Topher went back to his follow-up schematics and Boyd wandered off to do whatever he did when he wasn't supervising Echo or bothering Topher. Only later did Topher think back to it, and wonder if he'd missed something. Had that been condemnation in Boyd's voice? And if so, toward whom?

Topher wasn't a huge believer in sexuality. It was all chemicals in the brain, developed from the primal need to perpetuate a species. Maybe love was the great scientific mystery, but attraction didn't bewilder anyone with any knowledge of brain chemistry. It certainly didn't bewilder Topher.

\--

Boyd spent more time, not less, in the Dollhouse itself when he became head of security. Topher had first attributed this to lingering attachment to Echo, but he wasn't so sure if that was the only reason anymore, because they'd been talking for quite a while now, and not once did Boyd even glance down toward the Actives. It was the banter again, kind of like tennis or ping-pong. A sport of exchanges. Topher wasn't sure, sometimes, if either of them meant everything they said.

"Some people aren't happy being permanently uptight," Topher was currently arguing. "It's not always about big, scary dark secrets. Sometimes it's just about relaxing, or moving on."

"But it's not real." Boyd leaned against the wall, watching Topher simultaneously form a response and check the progress of his compiling code.

"And that makes it different from most relationships how?" Topher spun in his chair to face Boyd instead of watching him in a darkened, reflective screen. "With an Active, you at least know what kind of fake you've got."

Boyd shook his head, straightened up a bit. "You don't need to sell it to me," he said. "I'm already part of it."

\--

Adelle sent Boyd out of the room midway through an interview with some client looking to reform his wayward son, and Topher still had no idea why when he began the imprint process. Two hours later, wandering around upstairs, he received some unexpected insights.

"…thinks a pretty girl with a nice personality will be all it takes, he's an idiot." That was Boyd.

"But a rich idiot," Adelle said. "It's not in our purview to question the motive of our clients, beyond where safety to the Actives is concerned. As you've said countless times, we hardly have the moral high ground to refuse him."

There was a pause, and then Adelle spoke again. "You cannot allow your bias to affect your judgement, Boyd."

So this was about Echo. Satisfied, Topher turned away, and barely caught Boyd's response. "My father tried the same thing with me."

Or… not so much about Echo. Topher paused, in case something else was said, in case he was getting the wrong impression. Because it sounded, to him, like Boyd was saying he was gay. And that opened up a whole world of what-ifs and maybes that until now would not have applied. And a whole lot more about Boyd made sense, if this were the case. It bore thought – thought doomed to a later date, because at that moment, Boyd walked through the door and into the hallway where Topher was still standing. They both froze, guilty party easily identified.

"Hey, man-friend," Topher managed after a moment. Casual. He could do casual – except that sounded awkward, referring to an old joke. "Nice hallway to stand around in."

"You heard." Boyd didn't look angry, or resigned, or anything. Just aware.

"Not that I was trying to listen in on your secret conversations –" here Topher made appropriately serious hand gestures – "with Adelle or anything, but, um. Yes, I did." He considered, and decided against following up with an apology. No reason to act like it was a big deal, if it wasn't. "Do we, uh, need to keep standing around here?"

"No, we don't."

But they didn't move, just stood there, for a moment. Then they both tried, and ended up in that trying-to-get-out-of-the-way trap that resulted in staying in the way, until eventually Boyd pushed Topher out of the way and they proceeded to walk out of the hallway in the same awkward form of together as before.

\--

The conversation never happened. Disaster struck, because apparently the kid in question wasn't just gay but also two drinks away from being a homicidal maniac, and Boyd had to hurry away to deal with it, and then Topher was busy mind-wiping Echo, and then business continued as usual and it just wasn't the right time.

\--

"I don't like it," Boyd said, leaning against the door again. It was the first time they'd had an opportunity to talk since the incident in the hallway.

"Well, no," Topher replied, rolling his eyes. "And you haven't ever liked it."

"I'm talking about Sierra." Sierra, who just twenty minutes ago had been deployed on an engagement with an older woman. 'Something to scandalise the children' had been Topher's watchword, and he'd created an affectionate, demonstrative persona to be utterly infatuated with said client. Given recent developments, Topher doubted that any antipathy toward lesbian relationships was the cause behind Boy'd specific dislike. "How do you program that in?" Boyd asks.

"It's all brain stuff. You know, endorphins, chemical balances, neurons firing. A little visual prompting is all it really takes." Topher stood up from his chair without really knowing why. He didn't actually have anything to do at that moment; he could have stayed where he was.

But Boyd shook his head. "So you could put me in the chair, make different neurons fire, and I'd be normal? Straight?"

So he was gay. Topher wasn't actually surprised; someone that uptight couldn't have gotten laid in a while, and Topher knew for a fact that several of the female handlers would have been more than happy to help out with that particular problem. And to be completely honest with himself, Topher wouldn't have minded, either.

That was the problem, here. Attraction was something Topher could engineer in a computer simulation, or in an Active's head. It wasn't something that was supposed to happen to him. It definitely wasn't supposed to happen with someone Topher knew well or considered a friend. Sexuality was numbers on a screen. Topher liked to think he had mastery over attraction. Just because he had a little more of a chance with Boyd now shouldn't suddenly mean that attraction could have mastery over him.

"Technically no," Topher said. Boyd had asked a question. This was a bad time for internal monologues. "Not you. You'd have to be an Active, otherwise your brain would explode or do something equally destructive and you wouldn't be anything at all."

"Ah," said Boyd.

"Why? Would you want me to?"

Boyd looks suddenly stricken. "No, of course not," he says, quickly and emphatically. Not so much of a closet case, after all.

\--

They were doomed from the start to opposite sides of the 'nature vs. nurture' argument. That was probably the age difference showing. Boyd was likely a traditionalist with a strong gay identity, having come out in a much more rigid binary. Topher, jaded by scientific study, couldn't subscribe to something so simplistic. It was a good thing they were so used to being on the opposite sides of almost every argument, or they would never have worked out.

As it was, after a week of awkward encounters and conversations devoid of real debates, something did work out.

"There aren't any more engagements today," Boyd said, very pointedly casual. They weren't in Topher's workroom, but out on the walkway. Topher was doing his best not to get caught trying to meet Boyd's eyes.

"Do you want to get dinner?"

Topher turned his head to stare properly, so fast he felt wind in his hair. "Are you asking me on a date?" he asked slowly, not wanting to rush to conclusions. But all those chemicals in his brain had gone off like fireworks, and something had already convinced him that there was no alternative.

Boyd hesitated, just barely. Then he smiled. "If you like."


End file.
